Unfortunately, we have not had any new candidates for several months now. The one new member was from a younger guy whose work had him transferred to this area and he has transferred into our lodge. Back when I joined in the mid 1990s my lodge had over a thousand members, sadly we are now down to about half that. It's the same 25 to 40 brethren who are active and participating in meetings and events. On a brighter note, we have never repeated a W.M. in the last 95 years of the lodge's existence.

North Hills Lodge, #716,PMAllegheny RAM,#217,PHPAllegheny Council,#38,PTIMAllegheny Commandery #35Knight Masons,Gateway To The West Council #5AASR,Valley of Pgh.Syria ShrineIslam Grotto

My lodge has one candidate going through now; he will be doing the Third Degree in April or May. We have three going through the pre-application process. So far none has submitted an application but one I know is very enthusiastic. It seems to come in spurts with us. Three or four years ago we raised five or so candidates, then nothing until now. Around that time there was an interest in Dan Brown's books, and Massachusetts was airing radio commercials of a person portraying Benjamin Franklin extolling the greatness of Freemasonry. I think those two things had a lot to do with the growth spurt in Massachusetts.

Whether there is a revitalization, I think we'd have to look at statistics nationally and world-wide along with how long the trend lasts, if there is a trend. I hope it is a positive trend.

The Grand Master of Massachusetts who was installed in December has set a goal of 6,000 new members in Massachusetts during his three-year term, but with an emphasis on quality as opposed to just pure numbers. I think it is achievable, but is going to take a lot of work.

I feel the same way. In the same time period my lodge raised 13 new brothers we had 26 demits. Focusing on getting bodies, for us at least, is a waste of time. We need to focus on keeping them. The average time between raising and leaving has been six years for us.

As I've said in other forums, young men are telling lodges what they are looking for. Hell some are even writing books about it. If you fail to listen at some point they will stop talking. I about make grand lodge meeting come to a halt with I said this. The sad and unpopular truth is: if our lodges were worth attending people would attend. The Freemason machine needs to take input and needs to do so quickly.

I am terribly sorry if this stole your thunder brother as that is a great amount of petitions.

FYI: this was a reply to Coach but for some reason the quote didn't show up.

You are exactly correct, we need to keep the ones we have. It has been said, that to open Lodge, have a business meeting, then close and go home, is the fastest way to run everybody off. There needs to be more.

But I am excited that we do have more coming in, and they are a bit younger also, so maybe our fraternity will continue to exist and thrive.

For the past 5 years, I have been presenting a short (about 5 to 7 minutes in length) piece of Masonic education at my lodge's monthly meetings. Several brethren have told me that they enjoy my presentations and that they always learn something. Last month, the WM of the lodge a few miles away from my lodge asked me to come and do one of my presentations and it was well received. Such presentations don't necessarily have people wanting to attend meetings but I believe they do add to our Masonic enlightenment.

North Hills Lodge, #716,PMAllegheny RAM,#217,PHPAllegheny Council,#38,PTIMAllegheny Commandery #35Knight Masons,Gateway To The West Council #5AASR,Valley of Pgh.Syria ShrineIslam Grotto

This year has started out a little slower than last year up in the 25th District, but last year was very good. So good that I had two Chance to Advance (C2A) classes in one year! For those of you not in Missouri, the C2A class is a program where EAs can go all the way to MM in one day. These classes feature some fairly intense Masonic education which is usually done by Grand Lodge officers, up to and including the Grand Master. My first class in January had 18 candidates and the second class in November had 20 candidates. No, these were not all from one lodge but from several lodges from eastern and central Missouri.

These classes are not the normal way of conferring degrees and it takes special dispensation of the Grand Master to hold one. Its only March so who knows, we may end up having another class before the year is up!

My lodge does about 5 ~ 7 initiates a year. The rest of the district, minus one lodge that is dying, does degree work each year.

We just did an EA degree with three men. We are slated for a FC and a MM degree before our summer break. We are going to have at least one more EA after the break with two more. Hopefully we can get that class through before the year is out.

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